Dying Wish 2: Betrayal
by kittylover1890
Summary: Sequel to the original "Dying Wish". Rose learns the hard truth about her old friend Dr.Finitevus, and sees for herself how much he's changed. The kindly, friendly scientist she knew in Albion is no more... R&R! No flames.


**Author's note: This is the sequel to the original "Dying Wish". Disclaimers/copyrights at bottom. **

**Dying Wish 2: Betrayal**

Rose and Dr. Finitevus were still kneeling on the floor of Rose's room when Knuckles stormed out.

Rose was still smiling, but she was breathing hard and very weak.

With a determined look, Finitevus got to his feet, wrapped Rose in her quilt, and lifted her into his arms.

"What are you doing?" asked Rose.

"I will not let you die," replied Finitevus. "I will do what I can, what I must, to save you."

With a gesture of his hand, swift as the wind, one of his Warp Rings slid off of his wrist and expanded into a portal.

"Trust me," said Finitevus, smiling at Rose in a disarming way.

"I do," she replied, smiling back at him.

"Good girl," said Finitevus.

With that, holding Rose in his arms, Finitevus stepped through the huge gold ring, and it vanished with a flash.

Ten minutes later

"I gotta go check on Rose," said Knuckles, striding purposefully toward Rose's house. "I gotta make sure Finitevus didn't do anything to her- well, anything else, anyway. I still can't believe Rose wanted to do that with him."

"That's a good idea. I'll tag along," said Sonic, falling into step beside the Guardian.

When they reached the entrance to the two-storey house, Knuckles held up a hand, indicating that he wished to go in alone.

"But I came so I could help," Sonic protested.

"I can handle him," Knuckles reassured him, and then he entered the house.

Knuckles stomped up the stairs toward Rose's room. _If she's in bed with him again, I swear I'm gonna hurl_, he thought as he threw the door open.

"Rose! Are you all-"

He stopped short. Empty. The room was empty. Rose's clothing still lay on the floor where she'd left it. But Finitevus and Rose herself were gone.

Down below, outside, Sonic was startled by Knuckles' bellow.

"What?" Sonic yelled up. "What's up?"

Knuckles came to the open window. "Finitevus!" he growled. "Finitevus kidnapped Rose! They're gone!" He shook his head. "He must've escaped with a Warp Ring. I knew I shouldn't've left them alone…"

"Well, let's go find 'em and teach him a lesson!" said Sonic, slamming a fist into a palm.

"No," said Knuckles firmly.

"No? Why not?"

"Sonic, you know I have a score to settle with Finitevus. I'll find him and deal with him myself. By Aurora, if he's done anything to Rose, and even if he hasn't, he'll pay for this…"

About six minutes earlier, elsewhere

Rose lay in a bed flanked by various machines; technology, all of it highly advanced, was all around her; it filled the huge room.

"Where have you brought me? What is this place?" Roe asked.

"This is my hidden laboratory," replied Finitevus, stepping up to the bed. He held a device in one hand. "And effectively where I live. Welcome to my home, Rose."

"Why didn't you just take me back to the hospital in New Mobotropolis? You could've gotten the doctors there to help you, and-"

"No, Rose. They would've been no help at all. Their technology isn't nearly as advanced as mine. Also, they diagnosed you as terminal. They would've said there's nothing I could do. But there _is_ something. I don't give up so easily. Besides, they would only have been in the way. I know what I'm doing." Finitevus told her.

"What _are_ you doing? What is that thing you've got there?"

"First, I must see how far the cancer has spread through your body. This device will emit a beam which will scan your body from head to toe. An image on the monitor behind us will display where the cancer is."

"And then what?"

Finitevus chuckled. "Patience, my friend, patience! Let's see where it is first and then I can decide what to do. There are a couple of options. It may be as simple as surgical removal." He turned away from her, a coldly analytic smile on his face. "But with any luck, I will be able to test my hypothesis," said Finitevus half to himself.

Rose was unsure what to think. _Hypothesis..?_ she thought.

Finitevus turned back to her and held up the device. "Close your eyes and hold still," he ordered.

Rose did so, and Finitevus pressed a button. A beam of red light shot out of the device and raked slowly up and down Rose's frail body. Now Finitevus shut the device off and turned toward the monitor. And he smiled with muted wickedness. The cancer had spread throughout Rose's body, to almost every area, except her head and brain. Yes- she was perfect, a perfect subject for his experiment. He'd hoped it would be so; it was the main reason, the true reason, he'd agreed to visit her when she contacted him.

_Once again, my young friend, I am in your debt, _thought Finitevus.

"Well," he said, a hand cradling his chin, "it certainly is advanced. It is indeed a terminal case," now Finitevus turned to Rose, "unless I act quickly."

"Do you have a plan?"

"I do," said Finitevus. He clasped his hands behind his back and approached the bed. "It is too advanced for mere surgical removal, which is doubtless why those so-called doctors in New Mobotropolis gave up on you. However, I believe that, were I to do more than simply remove the cancer, but also to replace what it has destroyed, I will be able to halt its spread- and prolong your life."

Rose was silent, digesting all this. "Replace? With what?" The whole idea made her uneasy.

"As I told you before, back in New Mobotropolis before the Guardian so rudely interrupted us, I spent time as the Technomage and chief medical officer of the Dark Legion. I was also in charge of implantation surgery."

"Implantation?" Rose felt increasingly cold. And afraid. Had she made a mistake, trusting the albino echidna? "Doctor…forgive me, but… it sounds like you want to use me as a guinea pig or something."

"That's a terrible way to put it, my dear," said Finitevus. "I only wish to save your life. And it requires me to take drastic action. I hypothesize that if I replace the parts and organs of your body worst affected by the cancer with cybernetics, I can save your life. That is my idea, in brief. I have never performed an implantation surgery for this reason before, and I am eager to attempt it." His black-and-gold eyes were glittering with cold anticipation.

Rose was terrified, but she hid it as best she could. She had always felt comfortable around Dr. Finitevus before, but now, all she wanted was to get away from him. The way he was talking, the way he was acting…he seemed more eager to perform the surgery and see its results than to save her, his old friend…and it scared her.

_I have to try to dissuade him,_ she thought. "Oh, no, Doctor. You don't have to go to all this trouble. It's all right- I've resigned myself to my fate."

Finitevus was preparing instruments and a surgical table. "Nonsense, my dear. It is no trouble, truly it isn't. Anything for a friend, right? I have performed implantation surgeries numerous times before; just not under these circumstances."

"Doctor, it's all right; really it is-"

Finitevus was suddenly by her bedside, a mask in one hand, and holding one of Rose's hands in his other. "Rose, please. You must trust me. I promise you- your life is safe in my hands."

The look in his eyes- hungry, ambitious- even evil- seemed to say otherwise.

"Doctor, please…don't do this…I don't want to be a cyborg…I would rather die with my body- and our friendship- intact…" Rose pleaded. "You're scaring me…"

"Am I?" asked Finitevus. "You have nothing to fear from me, my friend. I know exactly what I am doing." His voice was soothing, but the look in his eyes, and the cold, cunning smile, hadn't changed.

Tears slid down Rose's face. She saw Finitevus at last for the monster he had become. She knew now that he'd planned all this- grant her "dying wish", get her guard down, get her to trust him with her life, and then use her in an experiment. He had tricked her. _He_, Doctor Finitevus, had deceived her. He _had_ changed. The kindly man she'd known in Albion was well and truly gone; in his place was this monster.

"Doctor…please…no…why?..." Rose kept saying softly.

Finitevus placed the mask over Rose's snout. "Sleep now, Rose. I'm nearly ready to begin." He held the mask there with both hands.

A sickly sweet odor filled Rose's nostrils; she was too weak to push Finitevus' hands away… As everything began to fade to black, she was thinking: _Knuckles was right. He __**has**__ changed. Dr. Finitevus __**is**__ evil…_

Many hours later

Dr. Finitevus looked down at the table, appraising his work. Rose's vital signs were stable, more so than before, in fact. As far as he was concerned, this experiment was a resounding success.

Suddenly there was a loud crash as the door was smashed in. Knuckles, scowling with fury, his fists clenched tightly, stormed into the lab.

"FINITEVUS!!" he bellowed.

"Ah, Guardian. Welcome to my laboratory. I admit I'm a little surprised to see you here, though." Finitevus' calm demeanor was so infuriating sometimes!

"Shove it, Finitevus. Where is Rose? If you-"

Finitevus moved aside a bit. "You're a little late to stop me, Guardian. I have already finished her surgery. And it was a smashing success, I might add."

Knuckles raced up, shoving Finitevus away. Looking down at the still-unconscious Rose, he was horrified- more than half of her body had been replaced by cybernetics. Most of it had been, in fact.

"_What have you done to her, you monster?!"_ Knuckles roared.

"I have saved her life, Guardian. Her body is more than 80% cybernetics, but she is free of the cancer," Finitevus replied, scowling.

"Rose didn't want this, Finitevus- I know she didn't!" Knuckles said angrily. "She hated cyborgs, the Dark Legion, cybernetics- all of that! When she wakes up and sees herself like this… You might've gotten rid of the cancer, Finitevus, but you killed her just the same!"

"_My experiment was a success, Guardian._ I had never performed an implantation surgery on a cancer patient before, and she will live now! Every shred of cancer has been removed! Most of her flesh-and-blood body had to be sacrificed, but the surgery was a success!" Finitevus countered.

Knuckles crouched, readying to pounce on the mad scientist. "Is that all you care about, Finitevus? That your experiment worked? It sure looks like it to me. You'll pay for this, Finitevus- and for my father."

"Oh? Is it a fight you want, Guardian? Very well, you ungrateful little brat- bring it on!"

Knuckles roared and leapt at Finitevus, wrestling him to the ground. He aimed vicious punches at Finitevus' smirking face.

"She's more machine than echidna now! Did you have to replace all four of her limbs?!" Knuckles demanded.

Finitevus held up a hand, his open palm in Knuckles' face. With a yell, he threw Knuckles across the room with a blast of black, corrupted Chaos energy. Knuckles grunted as he hit the far wall.

"The cancer had seeped into the very marrow of her bones! I had no choice!" Finitevus retorted.

"Rose wanted to die a natural death! Now she'll die later than expected, but as a monster!" bellowed Knuckles. He flew at Finitevus again, once again pinning him down. "You planned this, didn't you? From the beginning, from the day she contacted you? To use her as a guinea pig in your sick experiment?! I _knew_ you had some kind of ulterior motive!"

"So what if I did, Guardian? I saved her life, and no amount of accusations or vitriol you throw at me can change that!"

"Maybe, but at what cost? Besides, you don't care, don't truly care, that she'll live! All you care about is that your experiment worked! If she had died, you wouldn't have given a damn! You really _are_ a heartless monster. I'll kill you, here, today, now, so you'll never be able to hurt or deceive anyone again!" Knuckles held a fist directly above Finitevus' head, preparing to bring it down with all the strength he could muster.

"You will try," Finitevus smirked, dodging the punch. He gestured with a hand, and a Warp Ring slid off of his wrist and opened beneath him. He dropped backward through it, and the ring vanished. He had escaped again.

"Aaarrghhhh… NO!!" Knuckles bellowed, slamming a fist into the floor where Finitevus had vanished and leaving a small crater. Then, after heaving a sigh, he stood up. All there was to do now was to take Rose home…and help her adjust to her new situation. The Guardian approached Rose's bed and took her in his arms.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner, Rose. I couldn't stop him from doing this to you. But he will pay for this someday, I promise."

With that, the Guardian left the laboratory behind.

Back in New Mobotropolis, everyone was waiting in the center of town for Knuckles to return. Everyone was relived to see him appear with Rose in his arms.

Sally and Sonic rushed up to them. "Oh, thank Aurora! Rose!" Sally cried. She began to pull the blanket away from Rose's body. "Is she all-" She gasped loudly when she saw Rose's metal body. It was echoed by all present.

"Man! What happened?!" Sonic yelled. "What did he do to her?"

"He tricked her into going with him. He took her to his lab and used her in an experiment," Knuckles replied. His voice was flat and even, but Sonic could hear the rage under the surface. "He got rid of the cancer, but her body is now 80-something percent cybernetics."

"The poor girl," said Bunnie D'Coolette, who held her husband Antoine close.

Sally reached out and smoothed Rose's hair.

"I knew I shouldn't have left them alone, but I couldn't stand to see them together," said Knuckles sadly. "This is all my fault. I should've known Finitevus was planning something. And to make it worse, I didn't get there in time to stop him." He looked at Sally, Sonic, and Tails, who'd joined them. "When she wakes up, I don't think she should be left alone. You know how she feels about cybernetics. I don't want her to do anything to herself when she sees herself like this. She can't survive without these cybernetics now. Finitevus ruined her life- and her death, too. He might've saved her life, but he did it against her will. She didn't want this, I'm sure of it. I'll find him and make him pay for this someday."

Sadly, Rose was never able to reconcile herself to being a cyborg, or to get over Dr. Finitevus' betrayal. In public she remained as sweet and kind-hearted as ever, but there was always an aura of sadness about her from that time on. Rose always wore heavy, voluminous, shapeless gowns to hide her cybernetic body, which she was ashamed of. She saw it as the symbol of her naïveté, of her foolishness in trusting her old friend, in spite of the Guardian's warnings. Often Rose was seen crying alone, her face buried in her shining cybernetic hands.

Often Bunnie would try to console the despondent Rose. "It's not so bad, sugah-Rose," she told her. "Y'all get used to it. And at least y'all ain't dyin' anymore, right? There is a silver linin' to this."

Rose only shook her head, lost in sorrow. "How?" she asked. "How could he do this to me? How could he betray me like this? Do all those years we were friends mean nothing to Dr. Finitevus now?"

Finitevus' betrayal had hurt Rose deeply. For the longest time it was all she could think about, all she could talk about. But soon her sorrow turned to anger, and then to hatred. The friend she'd known in girlhood was gone; in his place was a cold, cruel man utterly and completely selfish, willing to use and betray even old friends to accomplish his goals.

"I will always love Dr. Finitevus," she told Knuckles one day. "But not the monster he's become. The man I knew as a girl, the man who was there for me, who cared for me, when no one else was or did. The Dr. Finitevus who is gone forever- _he_ will always be in my heart. But the man he is now- remorseless, devious, and lacking a conscience… We have no choice; he must be stopped. He is too dangerous to be allowed to roam free." Rose held up a picture of herself with Finitevus, taken years ago in Albion and taken with Rose when she left the city. Out of it stared and smiled a young Rose and a young male echidna in a lab coat, with purple glasses, bright eyes and an easy smile. She stared determinedly at it.

"Is that you?" asked Knuckles.

"Yes. That was me, and Dr. Finitevus, back in Albion. Back before he turned into that creature. I didn't want to believe you, Knuckles, about Dr. Finitevus being evil, but I can't deny it anymore, not after seeing proof with my own eyes." Rose sighed. She fixed her eyes on Finitevus' image in the photograph. "I promise you, Dr. Finitevus, that I will never forget you. But the good-hearted, brilliant man I once knew has been corrupted beyond recognition, and you must be eliminated."

Rose and Knuckles made a promise as well. Both of them had been victimized by Finitevus during his pursuit of his evil aims, and they vowed to pay him back for all the pain he'd caused them…someday. He would feel the pain himself… if it was the last thing they did.

"You know, Sonic," Tails told him one day, "Finitevus put something in Rose's brain. He put a chip in her brain."

"A chip? What does it do? How did you find this out?" Sonic asked.

"I did a scan while Rose was sleeping once. It looks like Finitevus could trigger it remotely; it would turn Rose into a mindless puppet, effectively. Put her under his control."

Sonic looked horrified.

"Surprising, yet not surprising." Knuckles joined them. "Sorry- I overheard."

"What do you think he would've made her do?" asked Sonic.

"Kill me, doubtless, and you and all the Freedom Fighters, and anyone else who stands in his way. It was about more than just using her in an experiment. It was an easy way to get his own personal, mindless enforcer. That's what he wanted to turn Rose into." said Knuckles.

"Seems so. Rose has weapons installed in her cybernetics, too, and it scares me how powerful they are. I don't even think Rose is aware of them." said Tails.

"Can't we just remove the chip? You know, surgically?" Sonic asked.

Tails looked worried. "I wish it were that easy, Sonic. If we _did_ try it, well, the way Finitevus wired it in, we would have to go about it _veeerrry_ carefully. If we made a mistake during the surgery, we might kill her, or in the very least, put her into a vegetative state for rest of her life."

Knuckles growled low in his throat; Tails shuddered. _I'd hate to be Finitevus right now, _he thought. Sonic just shook his head sadly.

"So we can't stop him, then. If we try to free Rose from his control, if we try to undo what he did, we'll kill Rose."

"Well," said Tails, shuffling his feet worriedly on the ground, "yeah, that kind of is how it is, for now. Sorry, Knux."

Knuckles growled even louder, slamming a fist into a palm.

"You haven't told Rose about the chip, have you?" Sonic asked.

"No."

"Good. It would kill her if she knew. Finitevus has done enough to her, and she's upset enough about all this." Knuckles said sadly. "Have you neutralized the chip?"

"I'm working on a device that will do it. Or at least block any signals for reaching it. Don't worry, guys- Rotor and I are working as fast as we can on it." Tails said, giving a thumbs-up.

"Then, until it's finished, Rose is to be considered dangerous, since Finitevus could trigger the chip anytime. But again, don't tell her any of this. Treat her normally. Damn that Finitevus…" Knuckles growled.

"You said it, buddy," said Sonic. "And to think they were good friends once, Rose and Finitevus. Well, they say your best friend can be your worst enemy."

"I think Finitevus made a mistake, turning Rose against him. She is now his enemy, no doubt."

"I agree. The whole thing is just horrible, however you slice it." said Tails.

"It is. I pity Rose. She made have been saved from dying from the cancer, but in her heart she died anyway." said Knuckles.

They all watched Rose, who sat on a bench outside her house, once again gazing sadly at the old picture of herself and Finitevus. She heaved a long sigh.

Sonic echoed her sad sigh. "That's what friends are for, huh?"

Knuckles didn't answer.

-The End

Dr. Finitevus, Princess Sally Acorn, New Mobotropolis, Bunnie D'Coolette, Antoine D'Coolette © Archie Comics.

Sonic, Knuckles, Tails © Sega/Sonic Team.

Rose-Lyn/Rose the Echidna © Me.


End file.
